Dear  정관호

Simply fabulous! I never thought I would have a chance to enjoy such famous Chinese poem. Besides, I am overwhelmed to you successfully inherited(?) such jewels from your mother. By the custom here I seldom ask personal thing but your mother must have been a classic scholar -HAAN HAK JA- educated by the family. Not to embarrass you with such personal questions through open letters, I will write you more through private letter. But, more and more I regret I ignored/lost  the best chance to learn Chinese literature from my mother- I simply rejected/hated anything from old culture-.

My mother was one of three daughters among leading YANGBAN families in Kyungsangdo who escaped to Seoul to get a new education along the turn of the last century- she went to BAEWHA missionary school and then to IWHA HAKDANG-. But she learned all those classic literatures from her grandfather who was a BUJEHAK of SungKyoonKwan - one of her nephews is a famous poet, Cho JiHoon-. She later founded Korean Women Society of Confucianism (HANGOOK YEOSONG YURIM HOWE) and dig out many hidden old poems written by women in YANGBAN JIB to establish NAE-BANG-GASA to become a candidate for INGAN MUNWHAJAE.

Any rate, when I realized I would need this Chinese classics, it was too late, regretfully! Nevertheless, for more than 10 years I happened to go to China at least every other year to give talks/lectures - sometimes two to three different cities/universities in one trip since China is too far to make a separate trip - and extend the services as a peer reviewer for their research and also coach for young surgeons to write the articles in right format. One unique pleasure to visit to China is I enjoy most with an ample chance to use my short knowledge in Chinese alphabets and Chinese history we all learned through our school days besides so many Chinese classic literatures like SAMGOOKJI we read every vacation.

Believe or not, same generation of ours in China was helplessly left out with no chance to learn such jewels together with their old history belonging to feudal system- sadly the party banned to teach for many decades!-. One leading interventional radiologist in Nanjing University, Prof. Li Sun who is actually God father figure in China angrily confessed how stupid Cultural Revolution was only to ruin their generation- he is two years older than me- so that he was so ashamed to know I have more(?) knowledge in Chinese history than he, making him feel so embarrassed.

Nevertheless, I am always frustrated with two different Chinese alphabet systems as well as different pronunciation of Chinese characters we were taught, especially when I go to mainland - in Taiwan, they still use the original alphabets to help me a lot to read/understand better-. Hence, I always consider Chinese poems are out of reach to enjoy with my short knowledge so that I am really envious to your such knowledge in Chinese poem as well.

However, while I visited to Zhengzhu of Henan province many years ago, I had a chance to visit to Luoyang (we were taught to call NAKYANG) which is very close to Zhengzhu of Henan Province, and for the first time I heard a solo concert of Pipa which included Pipa Song based on Bai Juyi (백낙천)'s poem. They gave a program including this famous poem but of course all Chinese in simplified characters to freak me out.

But I was somewhat surprised not many Chinese colleagues agree/acknowledge Bai Juyi known as one of the greatest poets in Chinese history comparable to Shakespeare in the English literature as we were taught. But they talked about Du Fu and Li Bai of Tang Dynasty who were still the best known poets among Chinese. Besides, while I  visit to Zhejiang University, they gave a tour to Hangzhou and of course they served such famous Dongpo pork (in Korean we call DONGPAYOOK) with profuse story of  Su Tungpo ( in Korean SO-DONGPA) along West Lake we all heard.  

So this is a marvelous class to learn Chinese poems no one would be able to do for us; I certainly will keep them to quote/cite when I go back to Jeijang Univ next April, thanks. Please share more with us, pal.

Warm regards,

BB